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Egyptians ask: Can I Have GPS Now Please? Yes You Can!

Disabled GPS now enabled.

David Martin
David Martin has more than 20 years of experience in the industry as a programmer, systems and business analyst, author, and consultant.
David Martin

A recent post to the http://www.hackint0sh.org/news/394>hackint0sh.org forum reveals that Apple has included GPS hardware in all iPhones shipped worldwide even in countries that don't allow GPS. We previously reported on missing GPS functionality in Egypt here. According to the Hackint0sh post:

"Hurray for everyone who lives in a country GPS is diabled on the 3G. Our user were able to unlock the GPS for crippled devices in Egypt an other countries. Other than stated by Apple, GPS is NOT left out at factory and can easily be enabled."

The patch and process for applying the patch to re-enable GPS functionality on the iPhone 3G is located here.

Other products have faced similar difficulty in eliminating GPS components for specific countries. When this was tried in the 1990's with Ham Radios hobbyists found a workaround. It was a constant cat and mouse game. Apple will surely react to this patch if they intend to sell iPhones in these countries with GPS restrictions.

A jailbroken iPhone 3G is required in order for this patch to work, and it is not intended for the original iPhone since it does not have GPS hardware. If the patch works for you we would like to hear about it; please leave comment.